YONGPYONG, South Korea (AP) _ Switzerland's Michael Von Gruenigen beat France's Frederic Covili to take the men's giant slalom on Saturday in World Cup competition. The 31-year-old Gruenigen clinched the victory in the two-run combined time of 2 minutes, 26.68 seconds, beating Covili by .17 of a second.

Michael Von Gruenigen

Bode Miller of the United States finished third at 2:27.00 in the competition that took place on the 1.42 kilometers (.88 mile) Rainbow course in the Yongpyong ski resort, 155 kilometers (96 miles) east of Seoul.
Saturday's races were delayed for one hour as officials cleared 10-centimers (4-inches) of snow which fell overnight.
"Because of the snow, the slope got slippery and I thought the race would be determined by who could best maintain his balance on turns," South Korean news agency Yonhap quoted Gruenigen as saying.

Michael Von Gruenigen

Gruenigen maintained his No. 1 ranking in World Cup giant slalom. He was 11th in overall World Cup standings.
Stephen Eberharter of Switzerland led the overall standings, followed by Miller and Norway's Kjetil Andre Aamodt.
Eberharter, who aimed to gain points in the technical events, came in 23rd on Saturday.
Ivica Kostelic of Croatia did not finish the first run. He leads the slalom title race by 100 points over Finland's Kalle Palander and could almost clinch World Cup victory
with a win on Sunday.
Austria's Hermann Maier did not compete at Yongpyong. He has had a nail surgically removed from the leg he almost lost in a motorcycle crash in 2001.

Frederic Covili, Michael Von Gruenigen and Miller

This Asian resort is staging two technical events for the Word Cup _ the slalom and giant slalom.

AP, 01.03.2003 

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